Little
by Anduniel
Summary: Vignette of the temple scene, spoilers and creepiness.


Disclaimer: I don't own, no money, no profit etc. just filling in some blanks.

Definitely an R, Vader Vignette. Disturbing and somewhat graphic. Italics for thoughts.

Little

It was a faint pull in the force. It was potential, not use. It really wasn't something even a jedi would ordinarily notice. It was so small a master could have missed it- unless he was skilled, and unless he was looking. As Vader led the slow march through the temple, as he cut down masters and padawans like a saber meet gone terribly awry, he knew that there would be this before him. It was more of a test of his new loyalty than anything else. It was whispered to him.

_Show no mercy_

He smiled now at that request. He did not care for children. He had never been one of these children. He had entered the jedi against the will of the council; he had been rejected. He had never been a temple youngling, an initiate. He found the source now, as the blaster fire slowed to sporadic bursts. Mainly temple workers and young padawans were now being executed in the halls below. The knights were dead, he had seen to that. The whisper in the force was coming from, of all places, the council chamber. It was fitting somehow, that here his life as a jedi would begin and end. Only this time he had rejected them. The doors were locked, but he knew the entry code, and he entered the dark room. For a second he didn't see them, because they had hidden behind the chairs, and because he wasn't looking for low enough to the ground.

He'd forgotten how very small the first initiate class was. Many of them had round baby cheeks and wide eyes. Actually they all had wide eyes, but they came forward trustingly when they saw him. They sensed the dark side on some level, that all was not quite right. But they were round bottomed and cubby limbed little creatures, like bantha pups, and they trusted him automatically. He found it repulsive.

"Master Skywalker, there are too many of them. What do we do?"

He looked at the blond and blue-eyed human youngling. Obi-Wan must have looked this way at that age. Clearly the master in charge of the younglings was dead, because even a padawan could have hidden the younglings better. This little boy was probably their impromptu leader, had probably gathered his fellows in this room. It was a stupid place to hide with no escape. He ignited his saber, enjoying the apprehension it caused. Some of the tiny feet moved now, as the younglings backed away behind the chairs. There were faint noises from around the room. The little hands clung to each curved backs and armrests as though the room could protect them. Or perhaps they were hoping to be saved by the ghosts of those who belonged there, because they were all dead now, the council. Even Anakin Skywalker.

Darth Vader brought his saber down in a chopping motion. The boy who had come forward had not retreated, had not moved. He was cut in two, and he fell without a sound. At the sight, emotions stirred through the room: disbelief, despair, and with it a strange acceptance. It angered him. When he was their age he had shivered and cried; he had raged, and laughed. The children of the Tuskans had cringed and shrieked in the arms of their dead mothers. Now there was no crying or screaming, only an exasperating silence.

_Don't they even care?_

Quite unlike the older jedi, they didn't call him a traitor, or make desperate final stands against him. Too innocent to know pain, they simply watched as he approached, quiet and patient. Trained to accept, to not even whimper. Too young to process betrayal, these younglings looked on death with what was almost serenity. They weren't even bothering to draw.

_Of course not, they're not old enough to carry sabers_

With a cackle of electricity his saber chopped through the group behind the first chair, and without bringing in his hand for the return stroke, he passed on. The severed bodies dropped to the floor with subdued thuds. He saw three trying to flee and force pushed them together into the wall, hearing the satisfying break of bones. It didn't feel like much to kill them, it was like a daydream. Like a dream they offered no resistance, and like a dream there was a lack of reality, as though part of him were far away. He didn't like the feeling, he was loosing focus, and he had a job to do. He tried to use his emotions, to hate those around him. But they were too insignificant- he couldn't even hate them.

_Isn't this terrible_

But it wasn't. It felt the same as everyday saber practice- a dull routing, a boring job. He supposed the emperor saw this as proof of an extreme, but it had been harder for him to turn on Master Windu. That had been the defining moment. It had been sharp and painful, unlike the hazy sensation of this massacre. Everything else had been a little step compared to that. As easy as marching.

Without changing his pace he continued to walk around the circle of the chamber. He switched off his saber. He used the force to close throats and rupture organs. Some of them were too young even to run. He brought his boot down on a their backs and crushed the spines. He brought his hand down on the patient and compliant head of the last one and turned it in one swift movement.

And then that was it. The life was gone from the room, except for the heat of his own body. His presence alone was singing, crashing, running through every current of the force. The jedi were dead, there were no more force signatures in the area. He had completed his task. He looked around the gore of the council chamber with numbness in his heart. If anything there was a slight disappointment now. Faintly he remembered that the council was already dead, that he had just killed the first initiate class in the very council chamber. Younglings aged three to eight years, depending on species.

The thought crossed his mind that if he had stayed a jedi he would have been a master some day, and quite possibly taken one of these very younglings as a padawan.

_I don't want one of these- they're all broken_

The thought made him laugh, a little.


End file.
